🧑‍🚀 Top Deals You Can’t Miss

1️⃣ Microsoft x OpenAI – renewed partnership and recapitalization, cementing control over the world’s top AI platform.

2️⃣ Whatnot – $225M raise at an $11.5B valuation, scaling its livestream commerce dominance.

3️⃣ Blueprint – $60M funding, propelling Bryan Johnson’s vision for human optimization and biotech longevity.

🧠 Dopamine Dealflow

🌳 Series B+ & Growth

• Mercor, a San Francisco, CA-based startup that connects AI labs with experts for model training, raised $350M in Series C funding. Lead investors led the round and were joined by institutional backers.

• Fireworks AI, a San Francisco, CA-based generative AI platform optimizing foundation model deployment, raised $250M in Series C funding. Lead investors led the round with participation from top-tier VCs.

• SavvyMoney, a Dubli, CA-based provider of financial wellness and growth solutions, received a $225M minority investment from strategic partners.

• Sublime Security, a Washington,o n D.C.-based agentic email security platform, raised $150M in Series C funding. Lead investors led the round and were joined by existing backers.

• Whatnot, a Los Angeles, CA-based livestream shopping platform, raised $225M at an $11.5B valuation to expand its global marketplace.

• Seneca, a San Francisco,o CA-based resilience technology and infrastructure company, raised $60M in funding. Lead investors led the round with participation from strategic investors.

• Blueprint, Bryan Johnson’s human longevity and wellness company, raised $60M in funding from new and existing backers.

• Formalize, a Copenhagen, Denmark-based compliance software company, raised €30M (~$32M) in Series B funding. Lead investors led the round and were joined by European VCs.

• Recess, a New York-based beverage and functional drink brand, raised $30M in funding and appointed Kyle Thomas (ex-C4) as CEO.

• CyberRidge, a cybersecurity automation company, raised $26M in total funding across multiple rounds. Lead investors led the latest tranche.

🚀 Series A

• Epic, a Dallas, TX-based fintech focused on the automotive industry, raised $10M in Series A funding. Lead investors led the round and were joined by industry-focused investors.

• PodPlay Technologies, a NYC-based vertical SaaS platform for participatory sports venues, raised $8M in Series A funding following its spin-off from PingPod Inc.. Lead investors led the round.

• Grasp, a Stockholm, Sweden-based AI startup automating investment banking and consulting workflows, raised $7M in Series A funding. Lead investors led the round and were joined by European funds.

🌱 Seed & Early Rounds

• SweatPals, a Miami, FL-based social fitness app, raised $12M in seed funding. Lead investors led the round and were joined by angel and consumer tech investors.

• Spacial, a Palo Alto, CA-based AI platform automating residential engineering and permitting, raised $10M in seed funding. Lead investors led the round with participation from early-stage investors.

• Honey Health, a Mountain View, CA-based all-in-one AI back office platform for healthcare organizations, raised $7.8M in seed funding. Lead investors led the round and were joined by healthtech investors.

• Wild Moose, a NYC-based AI-powered Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) platform, raised $7M in seed funding. Lead investors led the round and were joined by angel backers.

• WorkHero, a Boston, MA-based AI-powered back office for small HVAC contractors, raised $5M in seed funding. Lead investors led the round and were joined by regional investors.

• Standard Economics, a new decentralized finance project founded by former SpaceX and X employees, raised $9M in early funding to build crypto-based monetary infrastructure.

🤝 Strategic, M&A & Undisclosed

• Nvidia took a $1B strategic equity stake in Nokia, boosting the telecom equipment maker’s shares by 18%.

• Apple reached a $4T market cap following strong iPhone 17 sales momentum, marking a new milestone in public equities.

• Nexthink, a Lausanne, Switzerland, and Boston, MA-based Digital Employee Experience (DEX) management company, received a majority investment from Vista Equity Partners.

• Augmentus, a Singapore-based AI-robotics and adaptive automation company, received a strategic investment from Applied Ventures, the venture capital arm of Applied Materials.

• SpinDrive, a Lappeenranta, Finland-based provider of active magnetic bearing systems, raised an undisclosed growth funding round.

💸 VC Funds Raised & Raising

• Insignia Capital Group, a Walnut Creek, CA-based growth-oriented private equity firm, closed its newest fund at over $500M.

• Encoded Ventures, a Boston, MA-based early-stage venture capital firm, officially launched its first fund.

Founders: Want to be featured on @tradedvc? → traded.co/submit/vc

📚 Read of the Day

🧱 OpenAI Finalizes For-Profit Recapitalization

The world’s most-watched AI company reshapes its investor base after a meteoric valuation surge.

What Happened:
OpenAI completed its long-anticipated for-profit recapitalization, streamlining ownership among key investors including Microsoft, Thrive Capital, and Sequoia. The move formalizes OpenAI’s structure after months of valuation negotiations that reportedly pushed the company beyond the $150B mark.

The Strategy:
This recap aligns governance and liquidity for OpenAI’s earliest backers, creating clearer lines between its capped-profit entity and nonprofit foundation. It is also designed to simplify future secondary sales as the company expands enterprise partnerships across education, finance, and healthcare.

The Backstory:
The shift follows a two-year wave of capital inflows driven by the explosive success of ChatGPT and OpenAI’s API ecosystem. Microsoft’s deep integration spanning Azure, Copilot, and infrastructure investments has made OpenAI the defining force behind enterprise AI adoption.

Why It Matters:
For investors, this marks a pivotal moment where OpenAI transitions from a fast-growing startup to a structured, capital-efficient juggernaut, setting the tone for AI governance, investor returns, and competition with Anthropic, xAI, and Google DeepMind.

👉 Read The Whole Story Here

📰 News You Don’t Want To Miss

⚡ Google & NextEra go nuclear to power AI data centers — The duo will repurpose Iowa’s Duane Arnold plant to supply clean energy for Google’s expanding AI workloads.

💸 PayPal x OpenAI: in-chat payments inside ChatGPT — Users will soon be able to complete purchases via PayPal and Venmo directly within ChatGPT.

🧱 OpenAI finalizes for-profit recapitalization — The restructure cements investor stakes following its soaring valuation and partnership with Microsoft.

🧠 Elon Musk launches Grokipedia to rival Wikipedia — Musk’s xAI spins up a crowdsourced, AI-verified encyclopedia platform.

🛍️ PayPal expands ChatGPT shopping integrations — The payments giant deepens its OpenAI deal to handle e-commerce directly inside ChatGPT.